|
Ruffed Grouse
"the small brown pheasant" 
Bonasa umbellus |
 t Fort Clatsop on February 5, 1806, Reubin Field returned from a hunt with "a phesant which differed but little from those common to the Atlantic states; it's brown is reather brighter and more of a redish tint. it has eighteen feathers in the tale of about six inches in length. this bird is also booted1 as low as the toes. the two tufts of long black feathers on each side of the neck most conspicuous in the male of those of the Atlantic states is also observable in every particular with this." On the third of March Lewis added more details about the same bird:
| The small brown pheasant is an inhabitant of the same country and is of the size and shape of the specled pheasant which it also resembles in it's economy and habits. the stripe above the eye in this species is scarcely perceptrable, and is when closely examined of a yellow or orrange colour instead of the vermillion of the others. it's colour is an uniform mixture of dark and yellowish brown with a slight mixture of brownish white on the breast belley and the feathers underneath the tail. the whole compound is not unlike that of the common quail only darker. this is also booted [feathered] to the toes. the flesh of this is preferable to either of the others and that of the breast is as white as the pheasant of the Atlantic coast. |
The "Pheasant of the Atlantic Coast" 
|
 his is the Partridge of the eastern states, and the Pheasant of Pennsylvania, and the southern districts," wrote Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) in American Ornithology.2 Wilson's vivid account of the species goes beyond the simply factual descriptions of some others, such as Thomas Say. He recounted the hunter's perspective:
The Pheasant generally springs within a few yards, with a loud whirring noise, and flies with great vigour through the woods, beyond reach of view, before it alights. With a good dog however, they are easily found; and at some times exhibit a singular degree of infatuation, by looking down, from the branches where they sit, on the dog below, who, the more noise he keeps up, seems the more to confuse and stupify them, so that they may be shot down, one by one, till the whole are killed, without attempting to fly off. In such cases, those on the lower limbs must be taken first, for should the upper ones be first killed, in their fall, they alarm those below, who immediately fly off.
"Ruffed Grous or Pheasant"
Drawing by Alexander Wilson 
 rior to Alexander Wilson's publication of his nine-volumeAmerican Ornithology (1808-1814), the only documentations of birds in the United States were some catalogs of selected names. The first was Jefferson's list of 109 species that appeared in his Notes on the State of Virginia in 1787. Next came William Bartram's Travels Through North and South Carolina, of 1791, containing the names of 215 species. Shorter lists accompanied lesser works, including Benjamin Smith Barton's brief Fragments of the Natural History of Pennsylvania in 1799. Wilson's work, which established him by general acclaim as the "father of American ornithology," included 315 hand-colored drawings of birds, plus essays on 293 of them. Four of the portraits were included at Lewis's personal request, being of specimens he had brought back from the West: Lewis's woodpecker, Clark's nutcracker, western tanager, and black-billed magpie. His drawing of the eastern "Ruffed Grous or Pheasant," engraved for printing by John G. Warnicke, appeared as Plate 49 in Volume Six. Wilson's work was later reprinted in three volumes (1828-29) by his friend and biographer, George Ord (1781-1863).
In 1811 Wilson made a pilgrimage to Lewis's grave on the Natchez Trace, where he interviewed Mrs. Grinder — properly Griner, — the proprietor of the roadside inn where the star-crossed explorer spent his final suicidal hours. Wilson's report was intended only for the edification of a few of his friends, but it was soon published in the leading Philadelphia literary magazine, The Port Folio. Subsequently, theories of a murder conspiracy began to take root, with accusations recklessly cast about, which still persist in propagating themselves. Wilson also was a poet and patriot, and a patriotic-song writer. His "Jefferson and Liberty," to be sung to what was then a well-known Scottish tune, was an instant hit. It is likely that some of the enlisted men in the Corps of Discovery knew it.3 Wilson died of acute dysentery in 1813, at the age of 47. |
Wilson then called attention to the plight of eastern ruffed grouse, which had already become what would today be classed as a "threatened species." Formerly they were numerous in the immediate vicinity of Philadelphia; but as the woods were cleared, and population increased, they retreated to the interior. At present there are very few to be found within several miles of the city, and those only singly, in the most solitary and retired woody recesses.
He then explained the reason for their decline: Great numbers of these birds are brought to our markets, at all times during fall and winter, some of which are brought from a distance of more than a hundred miles, and have been probably dead a week or two, unpicked and undrawn, before they are purchased for the table. Regulations prohibiting them from being brought to market, unless picked and drawn, would very probably be a sufficient security from all danger. At these inclement seasons, however, they are generally lean and dry, and indeed at all times their flesh is far inferior to that of the Qual, or of the Pinnated Grous. They are usually sold in Philadelphia market at from three quarters of a dollar to a dollar and a quarter a pair, and sometimes higher.  uffed grouse belong to the family Tetraonidae (tet-ra-ahn-ih-dee), which is the Greek name for grouse, and may have come from another word meaning "spotted bird." It has been placed in the genus Bonasa (bon-AY-sah), reportedly because the drumming noise the cock makes with its wings during courship suggests the low bellowing of a distant bonasum, which is a kind of buffalo. The specific epithet, umbellus (um-BEL-lus), which is Latin for umbrella, a reference to the triangular patches of feathers on both sides of a male's neck that are raised during the courtship to expose the air sac. The American Ornithological Union's current Check-list of Birds of North America no longer lists an Oregon ruffed grouse as a separate species.
--Joseph Mussulman 11/04 1. A "booted" leg is a feathered leg. 2. Alexander Wilson, American Ornithology, or The Natural History of the Birds of the United States, 9 vols. (New York: Collins, 1828-29), 3:18. This was a reprint of Wilson's original American Ornithology, . . . with a sketch of the author's life by George Ord (1806-09). Ord (1781-1866) was a member of the American Philosophical Society, and president of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia from 1851 until 1858. 3. Clark Hunter, ed., The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1983), 3.
Funded in part by a grant from the Idaho Governor's Lewis and Clark Trail Committee.
|
Home
4. Hungry Camp to Full Stomach